For the Track
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 110.49 × 75.88 cm (43 1/2 × 29 7/8 in.) framed: 136.53 × 101.6 × 5.4 cm (53 3/4 × 40 × 2 1/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Department
CAB
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Jo Ann and Julian Ganz, Jr., in honor of Earl A. Powell III
Accession Number
1997.131.1
Art Historical Context
John Frederick Peto's *For the Track* (5), an oil on canvas measuring 110.49 × 75.88 cm, exemplifies the mastery of trompe l'oeil—a French technique meaning "fool the eye"—popular among late 19th-century American-life painters. Peto (1854–1907), a Philadelphia-based artist influenced by the Camden Trompe l'Oeil tradition alongside contemporaries like William Harnett, specialized in hyper-realistic depictions of everyday objects pinned to wooden racks. The title evokes the excitement of horse racing, a American pastime during the Gilded Age, suggesting ephemera like tickets or programs rendered...
About the Artist
John Frederick Peto · 1854–1907
John Frederick Peto, born on May 21, 1854, in Philadelphia to picture-frame gilder Thomas Hope Peto and Catherine Marion Ham, grew up as the eldest of five children, primarily raised by his maternal grandparents and aunts. Largely self-taught, he briefly studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1877, where he first exhibited and befriended fellow trompe-l'œil artist William M. Harne...